Joe Mazzulla, head coach of the Boston Celtics, is gone due to…

The Boston Celtics have removed the word “interim” from Joe Mazzulla’s title. The news of Mazzulla’s appointment as the team’s permanent head coach was made on Thursday. Ime Udoka was formally replaced.

“Joe has proven to be an incredibly talented coach and leader,” basketball operations president Brad Stevens said in a statement.He has a unique gift for igniting the atmosphere around a target. We are grateful for his efforts in getting us to this point and are overjoyed that he has consented to lead us into the future.

Mazzulla and the Celtics reached an agreement on a multi-year contract, but the details remained secret.

Mazzulla’s 34th birthday promotion ends the Celtics’ disjointed Udoka chapter. For a “volume of infractions” of team policy, the Celtics suspended him for the whole 2022–2023 season, just 15 months after he was hired as Boston’s head coach in June 2021. He is charged with engaging in a consenting, intimate relationship with a female employee, which is illegal. He is also alleged to have made improper remarks to the same worker, which she reported. The team hasn’t disclosed any of Udoka’s offenses as of yet.

Mazzulla was supposed to do that. He became an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics in the NBA in 2019, following eight years of coaching at the collegiate level. He was named Boston’s interim head coach and immediately set about bringing peace to a squad that had just lost their esteemed head coach. In the end, he accomplished all of that and more. The Celtics are leading the Eastern Conference and don’t seem to be missing Udoka at all, with an NBA-best 42-17 record.